English Leaving Cert Paper 2

It's all over for our English Leaving Cert candidates this year. They've just emerged from the Sports Hall having completed their literature papers at Higher and Ordinary Level. Again, we concentrate on Higher Level, which 50 of our 55 candidates sat. And all seem to emerge with smiles...

The single text questions on Hamlet were a long-awaited question on revenge, and a character one on Claudius.  The comparative questions on Theme/Issue and Cultural Context would have frightened no-one. The selection of poets was entirely predictable - Dickinson, Yeats, Frost, Boland (there might have been a little kick in the question on the last of those - 'reflective insights' in Boland's poetry may have tested some). There was, however, quite a demanding unseen poem, Leanne O'Sullivan's 'Poetry', full of rich imagery.

At Ordinary Level, all was straightforward: questions on Claudius, Laertes and Horatio, Social Setting and Relationships in the comparative, an extract from Kavanagh's 'A Christmas Childhood' and Hopkins's 'Spring' (as well as Noel Monaghan's 'All Day Long' and Julie O'Callaghan's 'The Net'). The unseen poem was Ted Kooser's 'A Room in the Past'.